Danger levels rose sharply in late April for northeast Syria’s isolated Assyrian Christians, caught for nearly three months now between Kurdish militias and Syrian army forces battling with militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State for control of Hassaka province.

“We are going through a terrible moment,” Syriac Catholic Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo told Fides News April 30. “The jihadists of the Islamic State attacked Hassaka for two days. They were warded off by the [Syrian] army and Kurdish militias. But we are cut off, like an island surrounded by jihadists from all sides.”

Some 1,000 Assyrian families had been forced out of their village homes along the Khabur River by the Islamic State in late February, sending them into exile in Qamishli and Hassaka city.In addition, 242 Assyrian Christians captured during the attacks are still being held incommunicado, reportedly at al-Shaddadi, an IS stronghold bombed last week by the Syrian army. Church officials have identified all 93 women, 51 children and 98 men taken captive.

But after two months of behind-the-scenes negotiations through local intermediaries, church attempts to gain the release of the hostages were rebuffed by their IS captors.

According to Australia’s Archbishop Mar Meelis of the Assyrian Church of the East, who spoke to Newsweek on May 1, the IS jihadists demanded a ransom of US $23 million, or about $100,000 per person, to release their Khabur captives. The militants reportedly described the ransom as the jizya – a payment required under Islamic law for non-Muslims who refuse to convert to Islam...

Trials make the promise sweet; Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low, and keep me there.

"God often takes away our comforts and our privileges in order to make us better Christians. He trains His soldiers not in tents of ease and luxury, but by turning them out and subjecting them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many long miles with heavy backpacks of sorrow. Well, Christian, may this not account for the troubles through which you are passing? Is the Lord bringing out your graces and making them grow? Is it for this reason He contends with you?"